The studio had worked most recently on the Harry Potter movie tie-ins, but a number of other games are believed to have been underway at the outfit.

"After a review of all current and future projects, Electronic Arts has started a formal consultation process with its Bright Light employees over the proposed closure of the studio," said EA's Tiffany Steckler.

"The proposed changes will help centralize development on future projects, reduce development costs and will allow for better knowledge and talent sharing within the organization."

Steckler also told GamesIndustry.biz that attempts would be made to relocate staff and that EA retained a strong interest in its UK business.

"Employees that are impacted will be considered for positions at other EA Studios including those in the UK," the statement continued.

"The UK is a vital centre of game development for EA and we intend to maintain a strong presence here."

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I guess for the UK, centralization via the Criterion area as a UK base HQ, could help reduce cost and allow for 2-3 teams under one roof to operate well? Unlike the various large megaplexs in Canada alone, space is a premium in UK

well, if I remember correctly - Bright Light and Criterion are already under the same roof down in Guildford, but yes I feel EA would be sensible to just move all their driving games to Criterion and increase the size of that team! (and they should just let DICE handle all the FPS's!)

Having worked with some of the Executive Producers/Brand Managers/Lead Designers from Brightlight last year I wish them all the best and hope things get sorted for them pretty quickly.

They were really good at handling external dev and I hope I get to work with those people again some day.

From what I gather the studio as a whole had kinda lost its way/mojo and for whatever reason never managed to find a clear direction to head in. Projects like 'Create' should probably never have been green lit, and without the likes of a big IP like Potter to bring in some garunteed money, I think most people there were nervous about the future of the Studio for the last year or so.

My thought's go out to all those affected - hope everyone lands on their feet.

If I was a long term investor, I'd really start to wonder how sustainable a business is, which cycles through highly skilled workers like nobody's business, or relies on the worker's willingness to be nomads. Studios are being scaled up and down as if they were factories full of unskilled labor.

Cost of living, Cost of wages of skilled staff in UK is EXPENSIVE.
As such, studios cannot afford to man medium to large sized studios eg. 30-100 + is v v v expensive.

A studio developing a AAA titles will probably be around 50 + staff in itself (and probably be working on a second smaller titles)

As such, I think its a case of either consolidation of staff into the core essential OR develop only decent core titles

in contrast, start up companies of 2-10 men are highly agile.
Overhead costs are lower, studio space is not a premium and a loan from the bank isnt too impossible with a decent biz plan. VAT and corp tax are the killer. All in all, this is what the changing landscape in UK and Australia is.

The good news is there ARE skilled staff, experienced staff but not all are under one roof.
Imagine if we had a amalgamated regional alliance of skilled experience staff partnered with new junior staff!

I thought that one of the reasons a lot of people were leaving the UK for Canada was that they were paying more over there? True though, it's a lot easier when the government is paying some of the cost.

Its not so simply about higher wages but more about costs of living and final take home pay after bills, rent, fuel and transport. Its just too pricey here atm arbitarily i.e these rates CAN be lowered from fuel duty to orporation tax to national insurance and therefore accomadate for rising inflation due to artificial quantitative easing